Living Plants Based Energy Harvesting to Power up Low Power Devices

When we talk about energy harvesting, we think about solar panels. We have never imagined that energy can be literally harvested from plants! Some may think this notion is unthinkable and impossible. Well, believe it or not, this technology is very much viable and this research does exactly that! We have proposed a solution to overcome the problem of energy sustainability in portable devices and wireless sensors through the development of new renewable power in green technology. Simply put, what we have done is use living plants as renewable energy source which is termed as Plant Base Cell (PBC). This innovative idea makes use electrodes to extract electrical energy from the aloe vera living plant which is available in abundant in Malaysia. So far, the experimental results are encouraging in terms of current and voltage whereby the received electrical energy is large enough to power up the portable devices without any interruption. This is taking green technology to the next level!

he MMU Digital Futures Research Hub is a multi-disciplinary platform for research on the digitalization of our society. The goal is to foster innovative, cutting-edge multi-disciplinary research, and to provide outstanding training for talented young scholars and students through 8 research institutes.

The hub is a community and industry centric entity, with 20 professor chairs that brings together universities, governmental and industrial research organizations, as well as state and federal governments.